Send an anon comment that his cavalier talk has been the only topic of the water cooler since then, and 3 unspecified but “fairly senior” personnel are now hunting for a new job
Discussion
Will it work? eh….maybe not, but if you hit the right pressure points in the HR apparatus, (have a woman write it as if she’s narcing on the boys planning their exit) then you just might get a 3% bump?
I had something similar once, because they overheard us talking about jumping ship to a new place opening up nearby, we mysteriously had the partners approve a blanket ~8% COL increase of almost a dollar an hour. Nothing amazing, sure, but there wasn’t insane inflation in the late 00’s
Better yet, just stir up the gossip, it's not like you're the only one irked by this. You can probably also find some higher paying jobs to show people, and if you're lucky you might even get some people to leave for greener pastures.